Character Analysis
Lau Po is the chess expert in the park who plays against Waverly. We know even less about him than we do about Waverly's brothers. He has exactly one line of dialogue—check it out:
"Little sister, been a long time since I play with dolls," he said, smiling benevolently. (31)
We don't learn a lot about who Lau is or why he hangs out in the playground. All we know is that he's a chess wiz, and "By the end of the summer, Lau Po had taught me all he knew, and I had become a better chess player" (33). His teachings form a transition between Waverly the Kind of Good Chess Player and Waverly the Thundering Engine of Chess Awesomeness. He's a teacher in the classic sense, moving Waverly from halting, uncertain kid to Life magazine headlining superstar.